Pere Lluís Font: "There is a kind of evil that is attributable to human freedom"

BarcelonaPere Lluís Font (Pujalt, 1934), historian of philosophy, at the age of 91 maintains an enviable lucidity and intellectual vitality. A teacher of several generations of philosophers, he has just published the Catalan translation of the Essential poems (Excerpt) by Saint John of the Cross, which have a mystical and erotic interpretation. And he concludes the essay Philosophy in nature (UB), "a text that is not at all emphatic, without makeup or rhetoric", like three of the great authors who have always accompanied him: Montaigne, Descartes and Pascal. In fact, his last major contribution (2021) has been the monumental translation into Catalan of the Thoughts Pascal, winner of the National Translation Prize and the Catalan PEN Club Prize.

How is your health?

— Health-wise, I'm improving, and intellectually, I'm on the decline, slower. Growing old means, among other things, slowing down. It seems to me that, given the way things are going, in our time, we need calm and tranquility.

How are you coping with living without the library, having to move house?

— It's hard for me. Getting rid of a book is almost like pulling a tooth. They're my life. Now I'm managing the donation. I have about 12,000 books. I've been thinning them out until I've left a core of philosophy and theology titles, about 4,000 that will go to Lleida, with an agreement with the university and other institutions.

What languages? How many do you read and speak?

— I'm not particularly polyglot. Aside from Catalan and Spanish, I'm getting by in French (seven years in France), Italian (one year in Rome), German (for a philosopher, there's no other choice), and English because it's the Latin of today. And of the classical languages, Latin and Greek. Latin is better. I also took a Russian course at one point; I should have taken Chinese.

Where did your passion for philosophy come from?

— I began studying to be a priest at the Seu d'Urgell seminary: they called it the Escorial of the Pyrenees. It was the normal way for poor children to acquire culture. I'm from Pujalt, in Pallars Sobirà, from a very humble house, Casa Jordi, with a purely subsistence-based economy. As a curiosity, at the end of the 19th century, the family expenses for an entire year were 219 pesetas. At the seminary, I came into contact with philosophy. But the Counter-Reformation atmosphere that prevailed there made me give in.

And he went to France to study.

— In Toulouse. In the land of Descartes, I thought it was time to study philosophy. It was the 1950s, and in Catalonia and the rest of Spain, universities only offered narrow-minded neo-scholasticism. Since the theology bug was still gnawing at me, after completing my degree in philosophy at the public university, I studied theology at the Catholic Institute of Toulouse, where I was the only lay person.

How could he pay for it?

— Teaching whatever you want, especially Spanish. And, among other jobs, unloading trucks at the terminal. I'd go in at 1:00 a.m. and work until 6:00 a.m. I'd return to my rented room, shower, and head off to university. I slept whenever I could.

And he returned to Barcelona.

— Yes. Joaquim Carreras Artau, professor of the history of philosophy at the University of Barcelona, ​​took me on as an assistant. I spent four years teaching the history of ancient philosophy, which means learning the history of ancient philosophy: there's nothing like having to teach something to learn it well. In 1968, with the creation of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​I was invited to join. Pep Calsamiglia encouraged me. And I stayed until retirement.

Later, together with Calsamiglia and Josep Ramoneda, they would compile a collection of classics of thought translated into Catalan.

— Yes, back in the 1980s. The Calsamiglia only saw the first volume. Ramoneda, who was already very active, gave me confidence, for which I am very grateful. I brought practically the entire collection. There were 97 titles. The last was a Freud. We remedied an anomaly: a country where philosophy was not read in either the original or the native language. We started with the publishing house Laie, until it collapsed because the manager disappeared with all the money. Then, thanks to Josep M. Castellet, Edicions 62 followed.

It has traditionally been said that Catalonia is not a land of philosophers.

— Medieval Catalonia was a small intellectual powerhouse, with Ramon Llull i Sibiuda. Later, at the border between the medieval and Renaissance periods, came Lluís Vives. And from then on, we lose our own rhythm and go with the Spanish, which, from the time of Philip II, established customs in Europe. The Inquisition had only recently been established. Rather, a very traditional type of philosophy was cultivated, never far removed from scholasticism. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a certain normality was recovered that lasted until the Civil War, when a sudden break occurred.

He does not consider himself a philosopher.

— I have always thought that the best way to teach philosophy is by doing the history of philosophy, which is like the philosopher's laboratory. Philosophy means lover of wisdomIn this sense, I can't deny it, I'm a philosopher. But calling someone a philosopher seems too solemn to me.

As a philosopher, reader, and Christian, have you had the feeling of going increasingly against the grain?

— Perhaps a little. I've failed in some ways, for example, in the idea that philosophy should be cultivated separately from general culture, so that it doesn't become a mushroom. But specialization is valued.

In the great debates between science and faith, between reason and faith, he highlighted the danger of scientism.

— The French invented the ScientismAnything that isn't intellectually scientific is worthless. I've always maintained that philosophy isn't a science in the modern sense, although it is in the traditional sense theorized by Aristotle.

Pascal is one of the three great authors who have accompanied him throughout his life.

— One of the professors I had in Toulouse introduced me to the Montaigne, Descartes, and Pascal trilogy. Essays Montaigne's works were Descartes' and Pascal's bedside books. And it shows. Pascal has been my companion of the three. It's taken me nearly three years to complete the translation. I had to go to the French National Library, where they have the original, and I consulted it with someone always keeping an eye on me. The facsimile from the Library of Catalonia has also been helpful.

Why do Montaigne, Descartes, and Pascal still appeal to us in the 21st century?

— Montaigne because he is the summary of all ancient and medieval, Christian and Renaissance wisdom, and because he is a garden of ideas. Descartes because he put an end to the philosophical essays of the Renaissance and began, on new foundations, with a will for radicalism absolutely unique in the history of philosophy, starting with the cogito ergo sum"I think, therefore I am." This is the only statement that is beyond dispute. In all the others, Descartes can be accused of not being sufficiently Cartesian.

And Pascal?

— Because he is the great heir of Montaigne and Descartes. He became Cartesian before becoming Monteonized. Descartes and Pascal always had mutual misgivings. They didn't understand each other on the essential issue of the void. Descartes asserted that there is no void a priori, and Pascal said that whether there is a void or not must be resolved experimentally.

They represent the values of modernity, which, like those of the Enlightenment, are in crisis today. Just listen to Trump. Are we in a postmodern confusion or an anti-modern regression?

— I've always said that postmodernism is a hoax. It's usually canonically defined as the crisis of the idea of progress, the crisis of grand narratives. But these are recurring crises. Postmodernism was invented at least by Baudelaire more than a hundred years ago. Postmodernity It's a convenient word to refer to the last half-century of modern culture, but to define the characteristics of current culture, they are much more decisive, such as globalization, the digital revolution, feminism, the sexual revolution, and ecological awareness. And this is all in continuity with things that come from modernity, a somewhat permanent stage until some kind of transformation so vast that it makes us forget our entire history. It could be the Islamization of Europe or the Sinicization of the West.

In any case, we are moving away from the "perpetual peace" of Kant, another of his favorite authors.

— Yes, at this political moment, Hobbes is more relevant than Kant. The Enlightenment is in crisis, okay. Faced with this, you can say: let's move on to something else. Or you can say: Europe has failed to realize the ideals of the Enlightenment, and it's time to take this seriously.

We have not talked about the translation of John of the Cross, which had both mysticism and eroticism.

— There's no better way to read than to translate. As Carner said: it makes you realize things you would never have seen even if you knew the texts by heart. And I knew them. Thirty years ago, a very poor translation of Joan de la Creu into Catalan came out. I hated it. And so I started to do my own, but it ended up in a drawer. Now I wanted to go back, also studying the author's life, the relationship between life and work. When Saint John of the Cross died, he did so, let's say, in the odor of sanctity. Many miracles were attributed to him. But the great miracle is that these texts have come down to us...

...which were never published in his lifetime.

— He had problems with the Calced Carmelites and later also with his own followers, the Discalced Carmelites. After his death, the beatification process continued, despite his being an erotic model, because he had written prose commentaries that are a kind of pious corset that camouflages, let's say, the scandalous possibilities. "Exempt reading," as Jorge Guillén said, without the commentaries, can be done from a mystical point of view or as a secular reading, that is, simply erotic. Neither God nor Christ appear anywhere.

Since we're in the ecclesial environment, how do you assess Francis's papacy?

— He has changed many aspects of the Catholic mentality, but his theological doctrine hasn't been affected. Faith is one thing, and theology is another. The Christian faith is compatible with various theologies. What is the official theology now? Roman theology, which Francis hasn't touched, partly because he couldn't and partly because he didn't want to. His has been a theology, let's say, semi-renewed.

More Franciscan?

— I don't know. Maybe so. There's a kind of standard theology shared by virtually all Catholic theologians, except for the fundamentalists, which derives from the Second Vatican Council, which arrived late, was short-lived, and has been applied laxly. Francis hinted at the possible ordination of female deacons or priests, but it has been put on hold. Why? Because there's a lot of opposition and because many people are praying for its death.

ESSENTIAL PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONNAIRE

What is being?

— The ability to act.

Why is there something instead of nothing?

— We don't know.

What is knowing?

— Acquiring a certain idea of what things are like, an idea that increasingly appears to us as very anthropomorphic. That is, we project our image onto things.

What is the relationship between language, thought and reality?

— Language enables and conditions thought. And thought attempts to understand reality, but we know it always does so in a very anthropomorphic way.

Are there unconditional obligations?

— These are those that, if you don't comply with them, you don't look bad in front of others, but in front of yourself: they make you feel ashamed.

What is aesthetic emotion?

— I don't know. It resembles some kind of emotion that isn't conceptually analyzable and can only be experienced.

What does it mean to be a man, a person, a human being?

— It means not being interchangeable with anyone. We'd all like to have qualities we don't have, but no one would trade places with anyone else. Everyone is one, everyone is unique.

Are we free?

— If we are not free, morality has no meaning. Therefore, if we take unconditional obligations seriously, we must postulate that we are free.

Do we have a soul?

— It depends on what is meant by soul, but the body-soul scheme is one of the very few schemes that can still be used to think about man.

Is there an otherworldly human destiny?

— If there is a God and God is good and loves us, he cannot allow the final death of loved ones.

And is there a God?

— There are good reasons to think there is no God, but there are also reasons to think there is a God. In any case, the affirmation of God's existence seems to me to be the most consistent with the affirmations related to morality.

Where does evil come from?

— Leibniz said that evil is the price of creation because evil It means "limitation of good," and if there were no limitation on the good in the world, the world would be God. Therefore, if one believes in God, one must be open to the possibility of evil. Apart from the fact that there is a type of evil that is attributable to human freedom.

Are there spiritual realities?

— If we did not admit that spiritual realities existed, we could not trust in an afterlife.

Are there material realities?

— All idealist philosophers have denied the existence of material realities, and idealist philosophers weren't idiots. For example, Kant. Or Berkeley. Or Leibniz.

Do animals have consciousness?

— It's one of the great mysteries. It's sometimes said that we have direct consciousness. We humans have reflexive consciousness; we are self-aware. I wonder what direct consciousness can be if we don't have reflexive consciousness.

What are space and time?

— I feel quite close to Kant's idea that space and time are the lenses through which we perceive reality. To put it in philosophical jargon, they are a priori forms of human sensibility.

Is there teleology in nature?

— All biologists share the thesis that reality as it appears to us is the result of evolution. Therefore, there would be no teleology in nature. But everything happens as if there were.

And in history, is there teleology?

— The last thing that was wrong was Fukuyama. I'm not Hegelian enough to think there is a teleology of history.